Cab It Up (2)

Poor Gary Barlow. Like many a performer before him, who fondly imagined that criticism was an art accessible to anybody with an opinion, he made a terrible mistake. He used the word "cabaret" as an insult.

You'll forgive me if I can't describe the exact scene where Barlow called a performer "too cabaret." I would research it, but that would mean watching X-Factor. If I don't have time to open those letters with FINAL DEMAND written on them, I don't have time for that.

Had Barlow bothered his butt to browse previous printed perfidies against acts associated alongside the vigorous vaudeville revival, he'd have happened upon the Edinburgh Festival burlesque bust-up, brought about by a controversial critical comment. When a woman writing reviews fancied that feminist fortunes were not served by saucy stripteases, a bevy of burlesque beauties boycotted and berated the malignant and misjudging media.

This is the same community of artists who forced the Edinburgh Fringe to add a new section to the annual brochure, so that cabaret shows would not get lost in the theatre section. It's the same art form that has been influencing alternative theatre over the past decade, inspired thousands of women to take up burlesque classes, is remembered as a powerful dissident force against the Nazis and preserves, through the likes of East End Cabaret, Bourgeois and Maurice, Johnny Woo, the Dark Jesuit Dusty Limits, Lashings of Ginger Beer Time, The Creative Martyrs, the satirical subversion of social,gender and party politics.

And, unlike many other art forms, cabaret has a strong community that is often mutually supportive. That Frisky and Mannish have made a video taking the piss out of Barlow's flat vowels and limited understanding of the genre is probably the lightest response he was going to get.

If nothing else, this video will provide a snapshot of who was going cabaret in 2012 - those acts who didn't send in their photos ought to be trying to persuade F&M to make Too Cabaret 2 - and watching it reminded me both of the things that I love in cabaret and things that I don't. I'll come back later and write about that: I'm too busy in this blog having a laugh at Barlow's expense.

I think it is worth mentioning one final irony. I have interviewed many cabaret artists in the past four or five years and - without mentioning any names, because I am a critic, not a journalist - at least half of them have told me that they are constantly being asked by shows like X-Factor to "come on and do their turn". They refuse, usually on the grounds that they are professional artists or that they were not too keen on having their personal lives converted into some tragic sob-story.

You know, that makes me wonder. Maybe Barlow's line was scripted. Maybe, somewhere in the X-Factor machine, there's a broken heart. A broken heart that has been rejected by cabaret and in this tiny comment was trying to get back at the spurning beloved.

Hopefully, Barlow will say something about an act being "too Scandinavian metal" next week.